Via newscientist.com -
NASA's twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are starting to move again after being immobilised for six weeks by severe dust storms.
The storms hit in late June, just as Opportunity was poised to enter the 800-metre-wide Victoria crater, which may contain crucial geological records of past conditions on Mars.
Lofting dust high in the atmosphere, the storms blocked precious sunlight needed for the rover solar panels to generate power. Both rovers had to stop driving, and Opportunity was so starved of power that its handlers worried it might freeze to death during the cold Martian night.
Now, the storms have finally receded and both rovers are about to start driving towards much-anticipated targets.
"The opacity of the atmosphere is decreasing - the available sunlight is going up slowly," says rover scientist Ray Arvidson of the University of Washington in St Louis, US.
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